SCIENTIFIC COLLABORATION ON THE INTERNET > > ZY^iZYWn<VgnB#Dahdc!6ccO^bbZgbVc!VcYCVi]Vc7dh [dgZldgYWnL^aa^Vb6#Lja[ Scientific Collaboration on the Internet Acting with Technology Bonnie Nardi, Victor Kaptelinin, and Kirsten Foot, editors Tracing Genres through Organizations: A Sociocultural Approach to Information Design, Clay Spinuzzi, 2003 Activity-Centered Design: An Ecological Approach to Designing Smart Tools and Usable Systems, Geri Gay and Helene Hembrooke, 2004 The Semiotic Engineering of Human Computer Interaction, Clarisse Sieckenius de Souza, 2004 Group Cognition: Computer Support for Building Collaborative Knowledge, Gerry Stahl, 2006 Acting with Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction Design, Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie A. Nardi, 2006 Web Campaigning, Kirsten A. Foot and Steven M. Schneider, 2006 Scientific Collaboration on the Internet, Gary M. Olson, Ann Zimmerman, and Nathan Bos, editors, 2008 Scientific Collaboration on the Internet edited by Gary M. Olson, Ann Zimmerman, and Nathan Bos The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England ( 2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information about special quantity discounts, please e-mail [email protected] This book was set in Stone Serif and Stone Sans on 3B2 by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong. Printed on recycled paper and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scientific collaboration on the Internet / edited by Gary M. Olson, Ann Zimmerman, and Nathan Bos ; foreword by William A. Wulf. p. cm. — (Acting with technology) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-15120-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Science—Computer network resources. 2. Internet. I. Olson, Gary M. II. Zimmerman, Ann, 1962– III. Bos, Nathan. Q182.7.S36 2008 507.2—dc22 2008007300 10987654321 Contents Foreword by William A. Wulf ix Preface xi Introduction 1 Gary M. Olson, Nathan Bos, and Ann Zimmerman I The Contemporary Collaboratory Vision 13 1 E-Science, Cyberinfrastructure, and Scholarly Communication 15 Tony Hey and Anne Trefethen 2 Cyberscience: The Age of Digitized Collaboration? 33 Michael Nentwich II Perspectives on Distributed, Collaborative Science 51 3 From Shared Databases to Communities of Practice: A Taxonomy of Collaboratories 53 Nathan Bos, Ann Zimmerman, Judith S. Olson, Jude Yew, Jason Yerkie, Erik Dahl, Daniel Cooney, and Gary M. Olson 4 A Theory of Remote Scientific Collaboration 73 Judith S. Olson, Erik C. Hofer, Nathan Bos, Ann Zimmerman, Gary M. Olson, Daniel Cooney, and Ixchel Faniel 5 Collaborative Research across Disciplinary and Organizational Boundaries 99 Jonathon N. Cummings and Sara Kiesler vi Contents III Physical Sciences 119 6 A National User Facility That Fits on Your Desk: The Evolution of Collaboratories at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory 121 James D. Myers 7 The National Virtual Observatory 135 Mark S. Ackerman, Erik C. Hofer, and Robert J. Hanisch 8 High-Energy Physics: The Large Hadron Collider Collaborations 143 Erik C. Hofer, Shawn McKee, Jeremy P. Birnholtz, and Paul Avery 9 The Upper Atmospheric Research Collaboratory and the Space Physics and Aeronomy Research Collaboratory 153 Gary M. Olson, Timothy L. Killeen, and Thomas A. Finholt 10 Evaluation of a Scientific Collaboratory System: Investigating Utility before Deployment 171 Diane H. Sonnenwald, Mary C. Whitton, and Kelly L. Maglaughlin IV Biological and Health Sciences 195 11 The National Institute of General Medical Sciences Glue Grant Program 197 Michael E. Rogers and James Onken 12 The Biomedical Informatics Research Network 221 Judith S. Olson, Mark Ellisman, Mark James, Jeffrey S. Grethe, and Mary Puetz 13 Three Distributed Biomedical Research Centers 233 Stephanie D. Teasley, Titus Schleyer, Libby Hemphill, and Eric Cook 14 Motivation to Contribute to Collaboratories: A Public Goods Approach 251 Nathan Bos V Earth and Environmental Sciences 275 15 Ecology Transformed: The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and the Changing Patterns of Ecological Research 277 Edward J. Hackett, John N. Parker, David Conz, Diana Rhoten, and Andrew Parker 16 The Evolution of Collaboration in Ecology: Lessons from the U.S. Long-Term Ecological Research Program 297 William K. Michener and Robert B. Waide Contents vii 17 Organizing for Multidisciplinary Collaboration: The Case of the Geosciences Network 311 David Ribes and Geoffrey C. Bowker 18 NEESgrid: Lessons Learned for Future Cyberinfrastructure Development 331 B. F. Spencer Jr., Randal Butler, Kathleen Ricker, Doru Marcusiu, Thomas A. Finholt, Ian Foster, Carl Kesselman, and Jeremy P. Birnholtz VI The Developing World 349 19 International AIDS Research Collaboratories: The HIV Pathogenesis Program 351 Matthew Bietz, Marsha Naidoo, and Gary M. Olson 20 How Collaboratories Affect Scientists from Developing Countries 365 Airong Luo and Judith S. Olson Conclusion Final Thoughts: Is There a Science of Collaboratories? 377 Nathan Bos, Gary M. Olson, and Ann Zimmerman Contributors 395 Index 399 Foreword In 1988, I was offered the extraordinary opportunity to serve as an assistant director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), and be in charge of the Directorate of Com- puter and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). At the time, CISE was responsi- ble for funding computer science and engineering research, but it also ran the National Supercomputer Centers and NSFnet.1 Several months elapsed between the time when I was offered the job and when I was able to actually assume it—months that afforded me the chance to think about what I should try to accomplish in the two years I expected to hold the job. It was then that the notion of leveraging the entire scientific enterprise with networking came to me. The idea was that we could both expand and improve research in all fields by provid- ing remote access to colleagues, instrumentation, data, and computation. In 1989, Josh Lederberg, Nobelist and president of Rockefeller University, hosted a small workshop where we both tested and fleshed out the initial idea, and then wrote the report that was the guiding road map for subsequent work. The word collaboratory (an amalgam of collaboration and laboratory) was invented later, and not by me, but the concept it describes has changed remarkably little from the initial one of 1988–1999. I was com- pletely naive, however, about how hard achieving the vision would be—as is shown by the successes and difficulties documented in the present volume. In addition to the specifics of the various collaboratories depicted here, I am in- trigued by the final chapter’s question: Is there a ‘‘science of collaboratories’’? Perhaps there is a reason why it has been hard to consistently achieve the original simple vision, and perhaps understanding that reason can be discovered using the scientific method. I hope so. I have a deep conviction that the goal of that vision is worthy of pursuit! My thanks to the authors and editors of this volume for succinctly capturing the state of the art and science of collaboratories, and especially for doing so in an honest and balanced way. William A. Wulf Professor, University of Virginia President emeritus, National Academy of Engineering x Foreword Note 1. NSFnet was the expansion of the old ARPAnet and the immediate predecessor of the current Internet. It was only accessible by researchers and not the general public. Preface As described in the introduction, the work included in this volume was in one way or another associated with the Science of Collaboratories (SOC) project headquartered at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. We review some of the history of this project in the introduction. But here we’d like to give credit to a number of people who played important roles in the project. A key organizing activity of this project was a series of workshops held during the study. To plan these workshops and the early directions of the project, we convened a group of expert advisers that included Jim Myers, Jim Herbsleb, Diane Sonnenwald, Mark Ellisman, and Nestor Zaluzec. This group met in February 2001 at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport with Gary Olson, Tom Finholt, Joseph Hardin, and Ann Verhey-Henke from the University of Michigan. At this O’Hare meeting, a series of workshops were planned to help define the focus of the project and engage a broader audience in its activities. Over the next couple of years five workshops were held. The first two, held in summer 2001, focused on the so- cial and technical underpinnings of collaboratories, respectively. Two subsequent workshops, held in 2002 and 2003, presented preliminary analyses and case studies, which represented early versions of much of the Michigan-based material in this vol- ume. Another workshop, held at the NSF in November 2002, took a broad look at knowledge environments for science and engineering. In June 2005, many of the authors of material in this book gathered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to present preliminary versions of their chapters. The give-and-take at this meeting generated a lot of cross-fertilization, which is hopefully reflected in the vol- ume. We are grateful to all the contributing authors for their participation and pa- tience throughout every aspect of this volume’s preparation. Many of the principals in the SOC project